I'll Be There For You
by rainbowrites
Summary: for a friendship meme I did, where people gave me two people and I wrote about their friendship and what they did when they hung out
1. Marley & Unique

They spend a lot of time at Marley's house. It's not that Unique's parents don't love her, and Heaven knows they support her considering the money they pour into her closet alone. But, well. They give everything they can. Unique doesn't expect them to understand. For god's sake she barely understands some days (and on some days it's so clear it's like broken glass), she can't expect her parents, born and bred Ohio Republicans, to totally get it. They try, and they don't expect her to wear boys clothes too often, and that's plenty. More than enough. Unique is happy to compromise on a few things.

But. Well. At the Rose household Unique gets to be the bossy big sister she always wanted to be.

(The first time Unique went to Marley's house she went as Wade, because she knew Mrs. Rose must have seen her as Unique in the cafeteria but she didn't want to _push_. But Mrs. Rose just greeted them with cookies (fresh from the cafeteria ovens! she'd winked), asked Unique where she'd gotten that beautiful skirt yesterday, and commented on how happy she was to see Marley making some nice female friends, not that that Jake didn't seem nice… )

And when they're at Marley's house they bake. A _lot_. Marley pretends Unique is subtle. Unique is under no such illusions.

Unique's arms are weapons,gorgeous gorgeous weapons darling, and she can whip up a batter in no time at all. She needs to keep her arms in shape dear, she doesn't even use a mixer at home there's no need to apologize for not having one.

Marley is in charge of the fiddly things, like actually measuring out the sugar and flour and setting the oven. If left to herself, Unique would just make kitchen sink cookies everytime. Not to say those aren't delicious but variety is the spice of life. Marley likes to joke that it's the spice _cookie_ of life, to which Unique loudly bemoans her choice in friends. The extras, the raisins and chocolate chips and the like, generally get tossed into each other's mouths in increasingly acrobatic games.

And sometimes all Marley can eat are the sugar cookies they make after school. On days that she sees people laughing and pointing at her mom, or that she gets a bad grade, or a million other tiny things that shouldn't matter but _do_ and lead to her crying in the bathroom during lunch, Unique crumbles up the cookies and feeds them to her in between sips of apple juice. It's all she can stomach on those days, the flavor light enough that she can pretend she's just swallowing Unique's perfume.

Not all days are bad days of course! It's not even a large percentage. Most of the time they make rich, chocolatey cookies (because Unique is of the firm opinion that everything can be improved with chocolate and Marley is of the firm opinion that everyone should really just listen to Unique more often) and stuff their faces as they giggle over _How I Met Your Mother _and _Community._

Sometimes Marley coaxes Unique into _Animal_ _Planet_ ("they're so _cute_, Unique!" "They'd be cuter as my coat") and sometimes Unique can switch the channel to Jersey Shore when Marley's not looking ("oh gross, Unique, they look like oompa loompas!" ""Mmmm, girl if the oompa loompas had _those_ abs then I was obviously watching the _wrong_ Willy Wonka")

Their favorite show, they both agree, is FRIENDS. They always sing the intro together, with their cookies as the best kind of microphone.

_I'll be there for you_


	2. Mike & Blaine

They don't get to hang out very much now, what with Ohio and Chicago being ridiculously far away and Blaine spending all his dad's frequent flier miles on trips to New York. And sometimes it's hard, maintaining a friendship that was so based on little unsaid things when you're not around to not say them. But they make it work, with the kind of simple dedication that neither of them managed to give to their romances (with Tina and Kurt, it mattered too much. Every single conversation felt weighty with meaning, nearly breaking under the force of their ache for each other).

Blaine emails Mike bi-weekly Glee updates, and Mike sends Blaine clips from his dance classes. A lot of their Skype dates are silent. They like to keep it open as they work; just having the other person there without needing to say anything. Sometimes Blaine will start singing and Mike will dance along. Sometimes they trade texts that are nothing but ridiculous puns for days at a time, and thank god for unlimited texting.

And sometimes Blaine talks a little much about Sam, and Mike has to spend the next day dancing until his feet scream. Because he's happy, so goddamn happy, that Blaine found such an awesome friend in Sam, part of him wants to cling to Blaine and cry because Mike knows that he's quiet and a little boring, especially when he can't pull you into a dance. It's the same part of him that wants to kiss Tina when he sees again during _Grease_, even though he knows he's not supposed to, even though he knows it would be the worst thing for both of them.

And sometimes Mike has to break their Skype dates several times in a row because his classes are so crazy, and sometimes Mike has to hurriedly sign out because one of his friends from class is dragging him away to some party. And Blaine smiles and wishes he weren't so fucking needy as to wish that Mike were still there to hold his hand. But it's hard sometimes, to watch Mike flourish in Chicago while Blaine's still stuck in Lima. It's like Kurt, and yet somehow even deeper a betrayal because Blaine knew this was coming with Kurt. He'd spent so much time worrying about that, in fact, that he never stopped to consider the life Mike would be building away from him.

But then Mike will send Blaine physical concertos that he writes just for Blaine, and Blaine will mail him care packages that he spent days carefully putting together. They'll _think_ about each other. And when they're at the wedding they hold each other so tightly their ribs creak with it, and they don't say anything else at all but let that speak for them. And they dance together, though of course they split off – Blaine to curl himself around Kurt, and Mike to try and hold Tina together before she flies apart into a million angry jagged pieces.

They don't hang out together very much after graduating. They never quite make it back to living in the same place. But Blaine is Mike's best man, and Mike flies half-way across the country to see Blaine's first off-off-off Broadway show. They send each other letters, hand-written once Blaine admits he loves the romance of the idea, their entire life and they meet up in person at least four times a year. It doesn't seem like very much to Kurt and Rachel, who practically breathe the same air, but they're happy.


	3. Kurt & Tina

They used to spend hours, back when Glee Club was first starting out and Tina still stuttered, making clothes together. Not just putting outfits together (although they did that too of course) but actually _making clothes_. Kurt had his mother's sewing machine, and Tina had veritable acres of fabric that her parents bought for her. Tina stayed over at Kurt's plenty of nights that her parents worked late, sewing by flashlight while Burt pretended not to know exactly what was going on in there. Even when Tina and Kurt got into giggly moan-contests to try and convince his dad that _funny stuff_ was going on.

He teaches her how to sharpen her scissors, and to never ever _ever_ use her fabric scissors for cutting anything else. She teaches him how to sew lace with tiny little stitches that disappear into the fabric. He knew how to embroider, his mother taught him how to stitch flowers onto handkerchiefs, but lace is different. You need different rules to be able to say different things. Lace is not cotton and English is not Korean after all.

They emerge from Kurt's room red-eyed and sleepless more nights than not, clutching bejeweled cloth and muttering about liners while Burt pours them both orange juice and smacks Kurt's hand away from the coffee machine.

They gossip mostly, in between questions about color schemes and rants about the hot glue gun's efficiency. They don't talk much outside of the safety of Kurt's room, and as Kurt drifts towards Mercedes and Tina towards Artie (and then Mike) those stolen times get farther and farther apart. But every morning, they still glance each other up and down. A little smile when it's a good outfit. A raised eyebrow for _you could do better_. And when Kurt puts on plaid and a trucker hat, and won't meet Tina's eyes, Tina nearly starts sobbing right there in the choir room because _can't anyone else _see.

They both thought the other was so brave, coming to school every day dressed as they were. Lima isn't a place for people who are so different (for people who eat vegetables that aren't fried) but they both put on their armor everyday anyway. So even when they don't hang out all the time, they still feel a sense of kinship to each other that they don't with the others.

Tina heard of Kurt before she ever met him. Before they joined Glee Club together, one of the best parts of her day was seeing what he wore in the morning. Even when she didn't personally like them, it just made her so _warm _inside to see him being himself through his clothes. When things got hard, and she felt so invisible that she thought she could start crying right in the middle of math and no one would notice, she'd look at Kurt strutting down the hall and feel better.

Kurt would watch the way she strode down the halls dressed like a gothic nightmare, and hope that someday he could own an outfit like that. Someday, he promised himself every time he watched Tina glide down the hall, sliding in between meathead jocks and giggling girls, _he_ would be nightmare. She wasn't a source of hope so much a reminder. That he was not alone. That he would be victorious. That beauty could exist even here.

Kurt's the one who starts the ND sewing team, after he gets fed up of everyone wearing vaguely the same color ("we need to look _professional_. This is just sad and pathetic") but Tina's the one who keeps it going after he finds friends and a boyfriend and all the other things that can fill up a happy teenager's time. Sometimes she resents that. Sometimes he still comes in, and gossips about which teachers are boffing who while handing her his golden fabric scissors without her even needing to ask.

Tina's the one who helps Kurt put his Vogue portfolio together, even though it's Blaine who took the pictures and Artie who found the perfect layout. She's the one who helps him choose which outfits to send. Blaine, bless him, loves Kurt in everything. He's hardly the one to ask about these things. So of course, Kurt goes to the one person he _knows_ will be able to help him say exactly what he wants to say with his clothes.


	4. Blaine & Brittany

Blaine and Brittany dance an awful lot. This is, of course, to be expected. At first he dances on furniture a lot, out of her grasp and leaping from place to place as though the floor is made of lava. She tries to tell him that the rug is made of 100% cotton-poly blend and that the nearest volcano is Mole Hill in Virginia so he doesn't have to worry, but he doesn't seem to get it.

He does try to though, his face all scrunchy and yearning like Lord Tubbington when they're trying to wean him off his cigarettes. So she can forgive him for being so very _trying_ so sometimes. He doesn't try to be trying. He tries not to be. Words are confusing. Brittany's tempted sometimes, to go back to not talking and just meowing at people.

She works at him though, slow and steady wins the race she knows that (even though that doesn't make sense until Santana explains that the turtle cheated, and then it makes _so_ much sense.) And she pulls him into her orbit for a few seconds more each time until they're dancing cheek to cheek. Sam's awesome, and his mouth is amazing at doing all kinds of fun stuff (like accents. And sex. His mouth is _really_ good at that) but he's not a very good dancer. Blaine is. She likes dancing with him, and feeling his little hobbit pulse jump when she nuzzles into the scruff of his neck. She's usually close enough that she can feel the way his chest shakes, and she recognizes that feeling from when she hugged Santana after her abuela kicked her out.

She holds him close and dances in a whirlwind around him so nothing else can touch him. As long as her ponytail is spinning in a circle around them both her blonde magic can protect him. She'd spin around him all the time, but that'd make her dizzy. Plus Blaine's getting better about dancing with her. Maybe he's got a little blonde in him too.

And he holds her too, when she misses Santana. She knows she's not supposed to, not when Santana is happy in New York and she's happy with Sam and Sam is happy with her. She knows all that happiness shouldn't leave room for unhappiness; it's like, science or something. There should only be so much room inside her.

But sometimes she still misses Santana, even though they're best friends again and everything should be awesome like it used to be. And Blaine notices, and Blaine paints her nails and brushes her hair so she has other feelings to focus on. He even uses extra shiny laquer so she can press the pads of her fingers to that slippery smoothness. It's one of her favorite feelings.

So when they're together sometimes they dance, and sometimes they paint nails, and sometimes they practice make up on each other because Blaine has really pretty eyes and Brittany's just super hot. And sometimes Blaine helps her with her homework and then she helps teach him new ways to stretch so that he'll be able to win Kurt back with all the sexy moves she knows. And sometimes they just cuddle, because words are hard and weird and bodies are easier. She likes the way his legs are all smooth, and he likes the way her boobs are like pillows.

They're aren't obvious, or crazy,in their love for each other. They don't plan insane take overs and mask-based plots like Blaine and Sam do. And Brittany doesn't have to search Blaine's fat folds for crack the way she does with Lord Tubbington. But it's easy and fun and nice, and they're both happy to have someone they can just be quiet around.


	5. Emma & Beiste

They don't hang out terribly often outside of school. Emma doesn't really like people coming into her house (she's got a pretty good handle on her OCD, but everyone needs a safe place) and Shannon respects that. Plus, she's got a pretty nice after school schedule of tutoring kids, hanging out with her non-teacher friends at the bar, and learning Chinese. What? She's got layers.

So most of their interactions take place at school, in the break room over squeaky clean fruit and creamy pasta. Usually they talk about their kids. They trade notes, sometimes literally, and offer advice and generally commiserate about how amazing it is to be simultaneously so proud you could spit rainbows at 50 feet and also want to crack a kid's skull for being a little smart ass.

It's not deep or particularly meaningful conversation, except for the fact that it's their entire lives laid across the table like so many shiny grapes. Emma wasn't there for Cooter, and Shannon wasn't there for the wedding, but they're there for each other every day. They're comrades, sisters-in-arms in the trenches of McKinley. They both know, with the kind of instinctive knowledge of a soldier, that they'd take bullets for each other.

It may not seem like a lot, half an hour a day of chatting about their students, but it's something they look forward to every day. It's the little things that make up a life after all.


	6. Finn & Rachel

Rachel does with Finn what she does by herself, because if she enjoys it then surely he will too? They watch musicals, and sing along.

Finn watched a lot of TV growing up, because his mom was forced to sometimes just turn on the TV, hand him a bowl of mac & cheese and tell him to go to bed by 8 before running out the door. But he never saw any of the classics, a failing Rachel is happy to correct. Coincidentally, they watch RENT on DVD the same night that Kurt goes to see it with Blaine. The only difference is that when they finish serenading each other with _I'll Cover You_, Rachel and Finn make out, while Kurt just stares at Blaine's lips and Blaine very carefully does not.

Finn knows that if Puck knew he'd make fun of Finn for being so whipped, but honestly he really likes it. Rachel is totally fair and lets him pick the movie since she always picks the genre. Her dads make these amazing popcorn balls; Finn's favorite are the chocolate covered ones but he usually only eats them at the very end because the chocolate melts on his fingers and then he worries the rest of the night about smearing on Rachel's nice white couch.

He doesn't have to try to be witty and he doesn't feel pressured to come up with things to talk about to try and match Rachel, but he doesn't feel like he's being ignored either. And Rachel always knows lots of really cool trivia about the movies, like the fact that _The Phantom of the Opera _is the longest running musical in Broadway history. And he gets to sing. God, he loves to sing.

Rachel gets to be wrapped up in Finn's arms, snuggly and warm, so close she can hear his heart beat faster being near her, _and_ sing to her favorite musicals. It's the kind of date she used to dream about, back when she only sang into her hairbrush for her camcorder. He never knows any of the trivia she tells him (Kurt _always_ knows, and rolls his eyes when she tries to inform him) and he's always so _interested_. She gets to be fascinating, instead of a know-it-all.

For two hours, they get to fall into a whole other world. She's not the star leaving for New York and he's not the Lima Loser (she's not the lonely little freak, and he's not the all-star quarterback). They're just them, her back warm against his chest and his belly filled with popcorn balls.

And of course, they both get to sing. They never love each other more than when they hear their voices harmonize together. It's like they were born to sing together. When they sing along with the lovers on the screen, they feel bigger than themselves. Not just a silly high school couple. The kind of love that people tune in to see.


End file.
